The present invention relates to a process for the preparation of bitter tasting beverages, containing as bitter principle cynaropicrin, and also relates to bitter tasting beverages produced thereby.
Cynaropicrin is a known plant ingredient with intense bitter taste. Plants and vegetable matter containing bitter compounds as well as bitter principles isolated therefrom have been used for considerable time as antipyretics. Extracts containing bitter principles as well as isolated bitter substances are used today mainly for the preparation of bitter beverages stimulating appetite and digestion, primarily however to be consumed in the luxury food and drinks trade. Besides beer, containing bitter hop extract, there have appeared bitter beverages with higher alcohol contents such as aperitifs, liqueurs and others, containing in addition to flavouring and sweetening agents extracts from different species of the plant family Compositae and the genus Citrus. Besides them, bitter tasting and more or less flavoured and sweetened carbonated waters (so called tonic waters have) became commercially very important. The main ingredients for bitter beverages of this kind are ingredients of the genus Citrus and especially quinine. Quinine has been used since the 17th century for combatting malaria fever. Quinine however exerts at higher doses relatively complex pharmacodynamic effects. Its use in beverages is therefore by no means harmless. For this reason the beverage industry has attempted to replace quinine by pharmacologically less harmful bitter compounds.